Bill,90, travelled from Bolton to Southport today,
proving you're never too old for
​a grand day out or a new opportunity!
​

He told me he’d read the description on the Crackmask website... A true story of early cracks, long shadows, and the light that made it through in the end. Something in those words spoke to him. He said it sounded like a life worth knowing about. So he came, he read, he chatted, and he walked away with the book under his arm, reminding me that stories travel best when people do too. ​THANK YOU, BILL!

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Just Sayin...

06/08/2026

New Reader Review of Crackmask

Back to Where the Lights First Came On
​

​A return to the Octagon Theatre, Bolton Some places stay stitched into you long after you’ve walked away from them. Today, standing beside a plaque in the Octagon Theatre in Bolton, I found myself face to face with one of those places, and with the boy I used to be. The plaque marks the opening of the theatre by Princess Margaret on 27 November 1967. I was there that day, not as a guest, not as a dignitary, but as a wide-eyed trainee sound and lighting engineer on my very first job in any theatre. I was seventeen, skint, dyslexic, and absolutely certain of only one thing: I wanted to be part of the magic. ​ And somehow, I was. ​ I wasn’t just behind the scenes either. I found myself on stage in Oh What a Lovely War and a handful of other productions, a part-time actor with more enthusiasm than technique, learning the craft by doing it, failing at it, and doing it again anyway. The Octagon was the first place that let me be both the lad in the wings and the fool under the lights.

Pointing back to the spot where I first learned how to make magic happen on stage, long before I knew I’d spend decades doing it around the world.

The Gift of Being "Stupid"
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Intro

My Dyslexic Life as a Clown

The Essay Because I was born Dyslexic, I was labelled as stupid by teachers, family, and other children. But I always knew something that those clever people couldn’t see while their unprincipled intelligence festered and grew inside their heads. I knew that being nobody but my stupid self brought me closer to reality and honest clarity. I also knew that stupidity allowed my art to flourish unhindered by hidden questions that the clever ones usually only have dishonest answers to. ​ My stupidity has allowed me to embrace happiness in solitude and to avoid the powerful and the flatterers who surround them. Indeed, I have now stopped talking to negative thinkers and people who only hear their own voices in two-way conversations, especially the clever ones who must always be right.